(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method of housing four or more distinct clusters of bees in the same unit. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of constructing the beehive so that each cluster can occupy as much space as is required for brood and honey production while remaining completely independent of other clusters also occupying the same unit, the various hive bodies are easily stackable and the hive is easily moved.
(2) Discussion of Prior Art
In 1851, Lorenzo L. Langstroth invented a beehive which has become standard in the United States, Canada, and many other countries. This beehive consists of a variable number of stacked hive bodies open at the top and bottom in which are hung frames containing individual combs, the lowermost hive body is placed upon a bottom board by which the bees enter the hive, and the uppermost hive body is covered by a lid. The most common size frame in use measures 91/8 inches high by 175/8 inches long and is referred to as a standard frame. Two size hive bodies which accommodate either ten or eight frames are most commonly used today.
Generally, commercial hives used for honey or queen production consist either of a multistoried Langstroth hive containing a single cluster of bees or a single story unit with different compartments separated by divider boards and which houses any number of separate clusters of bees. The latter beehive is built for queen production but can be employed for honey production by covering it with a queen excluder and stacking honey supers on top; the worker bees from the different clusters then mix in the honey supers. The problem in using a hive such as this for honey production is due to the fact that bees from different clusters do not readily occupy a common honey super but do so after only running out of space for honey storage in the brood chamber. Filling all available comb space with honey then prevents the queen from laying eggs and the hive population in this type of hive tends to decline with a good honey flow.
A two queen system for increased honey production is a common practice in commercial apiculture today. Double queening is achieved by maintaining the queens in different hive bodies of the same unit separated by a queen excluder. Bees produced by the different queens are allowed to mix. This two queen system has a number of disadvantages. The second queen must be slowly introduced after the hive has built up a sufficiently large population and is not always accepted. The larger population produced by a two queen hive is sometimes too late for important honey flows and can endanger the hive with starvation if there is no honey flow. The bees tend to abandon the lowermost queen during overwintering and a single queen hive results the following Spring.
In the past, a number of patents were filed which demonstrated a system by which a vertical partition of two honey bee colonies was achieved. This was accomplished by either stacking different boxes side by side (Persson, Gibbs, Pannell) or by using a single partition without easily stackable hive bodies (Parke, Huetter). These past inventions were not employed by the commercial beekeeper because they were complicated, working them was time consuming and these hives could not be easily moved.